Miami judge releases select records from missing girl's file

MIAMI (AP) -- A judge authorized the release Thursday of the majority of the case file concerning a 5-year-old girl who went missing from the state's foster care agency last year.

Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman reviewed Rilya Wilson's records with Miami-Dade police and representatives from the state attorney's office in a private meeting Thursday.

Information relating to the criminal investigation into the girl's disappearance will not be released and the record of the meeting is sealed, she said.

"I am going to release the majority of the DCF case file," Lederman said at a public hearing after the meeting. "I was able to -- document by document -- go through the files."

Late Thursday, officials released 959 pages of documents chronicling the case history of Rilya and her three sisters. Lederman initially had refused to release any records on the girl until the police investigation into Rilya's disappearance ends.

Rilya's caretakers say she was removed from their home by a DCF worker in January 2001 and was never returned. DCF skipped required monthly visits and reported her missing April 25 -- 15 months later.

The girl was born to a homeless cocaine addict and taken by the state when she was 5 weeks old.

After the hearing, a lawyer for Dateline NBC and WTVJ-TV in Miami said a group of media organizations will appeal Lederman's decision to withhold some of the case documents.

Attorney Karen Kammer said the media organizations want to know why some of the documents weren't being released.

"If a substantial amount of documents are being withheld, there is still a way to go" with the process to secure public release of the files, Kammer said. The appeal is to be filed in the 3rd District Court of Appeal Friday, Kammer said.

Lederman said the documents that are being withheld were singled out by Miami-Dade police and the state attorney as possibly endangering the criminal investigation.

The organizations appealing are CNN, The New York Times, the Orlando Sentinel, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel of Fort Lauderdale, Dateline NBC and WTVJ.

David Bralow, attorney for the Orlando Sentinel and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, said the only files Florida law says are protected during a criminal investigation are police files. The DCF files shouldn't be protected in the same way only because police are using them in their investigation, Bralow said.

"News delayed, fundamentally, is news denied," Bralow said.

Police and DCF officials argued at a May 9 hearing that the release of some documents would compromise their investigation. They also said they needed more time to determine which records could be released without hindering their job.

Lederman later said she would go through the documents with police to decide which ones to release.